Why I'm Not Weaving

  This week, I've been feeling extra guilty about not weaving, and wondering why I just can't slip a little weaving into my schedule.  How did I always have time to weave before?  But then, before what?  Before I owned a house, I had plenty of free time.  Before I owned a dog, I had lots and lots of free time.  

Before Williams-Sonoma took a shine to my jams, pickles and peanut butter, life was definitely less complicated.  I received an email this morning from my assistant saying they'd made 2,364 jars of peanut butter this weekend, which means we have about 1,000 jars left to go.  We'll finish that today or tomorrow, which means that after Thanksgiving, we'll switch back to Pickled Beets & Strawberries, where we have about 4,000 to go.  Here are Dustin and Shannon on the day we made 1032 jars of peanut butter.

On Saturday, I went to Mom's, who was in town just for the weekend.  We raked her leaves first, and as you can see, Bella was a lot of help.  Her ball was buried in the leaves, but she paused in her search long enough to be extremely photogenic.  Then, it was back to the search.  Most of these leave are from the one Sycamore that Mom is standing next to.  It's amazing to me how many leaves can be produced by one tree, when they're on the ground.  After the leaves were all raked and mostly all were bagged, we went to lunch and then the plant nursery.  We were in search of her birthday Dogwood, but there were none to be found.  We settled on a beautiful oak leaf hydrangea, with deep maroon leaves and silvery edges.  We also planted a burning bush Mom had in a planter on the porch.  

 Sunday was my day, full of cleaning house, a big fat mid-morning nap and tilling, planting and planning.  I finally plowed the north forty, the triangular flower bed.  I stopped with about four feet to the garage to go, when I realized the grass there hadn't been sprayed and would just come back ten times more viciously if I kept going.  I planted all the bulbs in the plastic bags, and I planted the peonies.  When I pulled them from their plastic bags, I was shocked at their appearance.  They look like some alien life form!  And it took me a few minutes to figure out which end went up.  I have one pink, one white with scarlet centers and one red.  They are all tucked in now for the winter, with wooden stakes showing where they are.
 






The bush in the left of the photo was an impulse buy at the nursery.  It's a Loropetalum, and they had one espaliered in a gigantic pot.  It didn't take long for the salesman to convince me I couldn't duplicate what they'd done, but I sure wanted one of those plants!

Here's a photo of what it will look like when it's in bloom and a little bigger.  I debated whether to put it in the back or front until I read the tag.  It gets fifteen feet wide and eight feet tall, a perfect screen from the frat boys next door and the street, so it went in the front yard.
  And that's why I haven't been weaving.  The back yard is almost ready for the winter now, and the peanut butter will be done soon.  We have enough pickles for the first shipment, so I really should relax about that a little.  Maybe next Monday, I'll be able to report on some weaving!  Until then, you have some happy weaving for me!
Maggie